The Jews and all modern religious traditions originated in ancient India

Originally posted by XXX777
You need to read H.P. Blavatsky. She tells this story including her feelings about the Jews. Blavatsky says people have been on Earth looking up at
the stars and recording planet and constellation positions for at least 8 million years. It makes sense. You must read her books. She makes perfect
sense. There are even books written about Blavatsky that try to make her look like a lunatic. It is obvious somebody doesn't want you to get the real
story.

Lunatic? Excessively creative I'd say with a touch of fraud to make her interesting; her metaphysical stuff is a hard read and her root race material,
although interesting, falls apart when compare to today's knowledge of geology, archaeology and genetics

Edgar Cayce gave life readings from lives as far back as ten million years. Most people would reject the idea immediately out of hand. It's so far out
from what we've been taught.

Unfortunately we have no evidence that we existed then. HB's material reflected a world that didn't exist, as some have claimed she may have been just
imagining it or an alternative world. The reality is: she was wrong and ED made stuff up....

Originally posted by earthdude
I heard some wise men from the east were connected to Jesus. They gave him some gifts. It is written. I don't think it is sacreligious to think that
Jesus was a Buddhist.Tbe entire Jesus story may have originated in India but this does not diminish the power of his story. Christian, Jew, and Muslim
should unite under this theory and not divide.

No doubt what Christ and The Buddha said was very close, in particular how you treat others. From my point of view you can be an abject atheist (I
know several who are kinder and more honest then a lot of the "religious" people I have met) but if you try to live your life by the teachings of
Christ or The Buddha, as some of my atheist friends do, though they don't "belong" to or believe in any religion, then as far as I'm concerned
just following those principles alone with or without the religious stuff and the world would be a far , far better place.

St. John the Baptist is an oil painting on walnut wood by Leonardo da Vinci. Completed from 1513 to 1516, when the High Renaissance was metamorphosing
into Mannerism, it is believed to be his last painting. The original size of the work was 69x57 cm. It is now exhibited at the Musée du Louvre in
Paris, France.

The piece depicts St. John the Baptist in isolation. St. John is dressed in pelts, has long curly hair, and is smiling in an enigmatic manner which is
reminiscent of Leonardo's famous Mona Lisa. He holds a reed cross in his left hand while his right hand points up toward heaven (like St Anne in
Leonardo's cartoon The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist). It is believed that the cross and wool skins were added at a later
date by another painter.

The pointing gesture of St. John toward the heavens suggests the importance of salvation through baptism that John the Baptist represents. The work is
often quoted by later painters, especially those in the late Renaissance and Mannerist schools. The inclusion of a gesture similar to John's would
increase the importance of a work with a religious conceit.

The effeminate, androgynous portrayal of St. John where he is usually seen as a gaunt and muscular figure is unusual.

A suggested reason for the darkened background is in reference to the description of St.John in the Bible as 'a light that shineth in the
darkness'.

In 1997, Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince introduced the so-called “John gesture”: a specific pose painted by Leonardo da Vinci. They were at pains to
clearly identify the symbolism of the gesture, but with a little help of Hermetic magic… ?

What is the “John gesture”? Picknett & Prince identified that da Vinci in his paintings often depicted certain people as raising their right index
finger skywards. This is very pronounced in da Vinci’s painting of John the Baptist, but even in the Last Supper, one figure makes the John gesture.

Other painters seem to have noticed this was one of da Vinci’s trademarks. Raphael depicted Leonardo as Plato in his The School of Athens, where
Leonardo/Plato is depicted with the “John gesture”. That this “John gesture” is also present in many of the paintings in the Turin Cathedral,
could be a mere coincidence, but we note that the “John gesture” is extremely rare to be found in iconography. So: coincidence? Or more evidence
for Picknett & Prince’s theory?

What does the John gesture mean? In short, Picknett & Prince do not know, but do construct a possible scenario. John the Baptist is notorious for his
right index finger, with which he identified Jesus as the “Son of God”. For Picknett & Prince, the “John gesture” should be read as a
concealed reference to John the Baptist, in which the sign says “remember John the Baptist”.

Let us detach for now the “John gesture” from all of its built-up theorizing. What we are left with, is a curiosity in the work of da Vinci,
whereby certain paintings show a person who is raising a right index finger. What could it mean? To repeat, the “John gesture” is not solely
linked with John the Baptist; a number of people in his paintings show “the finger”, even though for the most parts they are linked with the
Baptist. The key question is: what does the finger mean?

They don't have a clue. But I know what it means and signifies, and I am convinced that people like da Vinci and Botticelli knew things that the
average Joe did not, but that they nevertheless wanted communicated, yet sereptitiously and by veiled inference, so as not to get them into any
trouble with the Church.

And since no one's figured it out, except perhaps in the Vatican archives or something, we have the priviledge of allowing such paintings as John the
Baptist and Adoration of the Magi, to speak to us now, today, even in this very thread right here at ATS.

February 26th, 2012
The planets Jupiter, Venus and the Moon are seen in whats called a Triple Conjunction.

No matter where you are on Earth – as soon as darkness falls on February 26, 2012 – look west, the direction of sunset. You’ll see the moon and
the brightest planets Jupiter and Venus lighting up your western sky. As seen from North America, the waxing crescent moon and Jupiter snuggle up
close enough to occupy a single binocular field. earthsky.org...

Venus. The bright morning star.

Venus - Eastern Star of Enlightened Compassion and Love
with Jupiter, King of the Planets and thus the "crowing glory" for those who are open to celestial signs, as were the Ancient Magi, and for those, in
recognizing the sign, love love and are loyal to love as the governing dynamic - with a balance, in harmony, between both male and
female aspects/elements together in a Triple Conjunction with the bowl or the cup or the cradle of a crescent moon. What a radiant love affair! How
interesting, especially these days, may it represent a hopeful sign of the times and a portent of still better things yet to come.

And speaking of moons, you have to wonder at just how many (or how few!) of the planets in our galaxy, AND, that encirle stars in the entire
universe, which also house intelligent, senitent life (observers), just happen to have their single moon perfectly exclipse the observered
circumfrence of their sun, with the shadow of the earth (their planet) in turn perfectly eclipsing their single moon. Perhaps indeed the last are
first and the first last.. things that make ya go hmmm..

I don't know if you've read this or not, but you might find this useful. The Rig Veda existed 12,000 years ago.

“The Celestial Key to the Vedas: Discovering the Origins of the World’s Oldest Civilization” by B.G. Sidharth

“B. G. Sidharth is director of India's B. M. Birla Science Center. He has over 30 years of experience in astronomy and science education and is a
frequent consultant to astronomy journals and science centers around the globe. He lives in Hyderabad, India.”

“A leading astronomer proves that India had a thriving civilization capable of sophisticated astronomy long before Greece, Egypt, or any other world
culture.”

“Provides conclusive evidence that the Rig Veda is 12,000 years old. Astronomer B. G. Sidharth proves conclusively that the earliest portions of the
Rig Veda can be dated as far back as 10,000 b.c.”

“He explores such subjects as the astronomical significance of many Hindu deities and myths, the system of lunar asterisms used to mark time, the
identity of the Asvins, and the sophisticated calendar of the ancients that harmonized solar and lunar cycles. Sidharth provides incontrovertible
evidence that such "advanced"
astronomical concepts as precession, heliocentrism, and the eclipse cycle are encoded in these ancient texts, passages of which make perfect sense
only if these astronomical keys are known.”

“Based on internal evidence in the Mahabharata and Ramayana, he also becomes the first to establish likely dates--and even places--for the events
described in these famous epics. The Celestial Key to the Vedas is sure to astonish anyone concerned with astronomy, India, or the roots of
civilization.”

So while allegorically "The Three Kings" or Three Wise Men from the Orient, may be considered from one perspective the three contemporaneous
philosophers of Lao Tzu, Confuscius and Buddha approx 500 years BC, the actual Magi, these - the ones who actually travelled from the East
(with the star above them the whole way) to the place of Jesus, by the evidence given by John's later behavior in the wilderness, preparing the way,
and in accordance with Jesus' controversial birth and difficulty managing in his society - who came to then recieve him as a boy and take him back to
the place from whence they came, his "reinjection" back into Jewish society by the return path predetermined from the moment they came to get him
(with periodic correspondance available across the distance), a date and time (over 20 years later) shared with Mary and her sister Martha mother of
John the Baptist and cousin of Jesus, and thus with John himself - they were the then present day Magi, under the Eastern Star of Buddha's
enlightenment or put simply of enlightenment itself, symbolized by Venus, star of feminine, motherly compassion and true love, although in the case of
the ancient Indian philosophers and cosmologists, it (star of enlightenment) may have instead been Jupiter, as a balancing force to the aluring light
of Venus, possibly considered as a type of conceipt, and thus a possibly demonic source of energy as a "lure" yet one nevertheless turned friendly as
a result of Sidartha Gautama's "Great Work" (more on that to follow). They were the masters, of all "the arts" and the great treasure of wisdom
accumulated by the sacred science of Brahmavidya, including Yogic meditative self-mastery, along with a 3000 (-12000) year history of culture, of
technology and "sacred science", reason, and logic, an entire system pre-dating ancient Egyptian times.

This is an extraordinary revelation in its own right. And so the Indian Magi came from the East to where he was, with prescious gifts, along the trade
rout from the Indus Valley all the way to Mesopatamia, even to Jerusalem, and there were deep deep ties, between these two cultures, as seen by a
simple, cursory glance at the tree of life graphic, and how it relates to the chakra system, it's plain as day. And whether it was at the place of his
physical birth or on recieving him into their care and teuteledge at a slightly later date when Jesus was but a young boy, either way they did come to
him, and this I think can also serve to explain his apparent absence from Jewish society until making a return at John's proclamation (with advanced
warning) from ourside Jewish society, in the wilderness, and what better place from which to secretly initiate (and debrief Jesus as Jesus' "inside
man") his long lost cousin, into his Essenian Jewish Mystical wisdom via the spirit of Elijah, which was John's character, even his reincarnation, and
at the very same place, the Jordan River, where Elijah made his unfulfilled tacit promise to Elisha (a man) for a "double dose" of the Spirit, same
location, time and place known well in advance, as if the whole thing was actually scripted across vast time and space and even bottled up history,
the oppression of empire corrupting the people's temple (sound familiar?), the works, the whole nine yards, with a young, and perhaps sorrowful,
rejected and often lonely boy helped along to become something utterly extraordinary - the most highly developed human being to walk the face of the
planet, God realized, in human form, again "as per plan", like a grand historical fated wedge pointing in one direction only and threading all the way
through all the prophets and the law, the Exodus, again the whole nine yards, and Jesus he understood himself within this larger context as the very
Messiah prophecied, and set out intentionally, and in collusion with his cousin John, to fulfill every single prophecy, to a t, and then to the nth
degree (more on THAT...!). And after 20 years of study, he would have known the Torah like the back of his hand, as well. He was unstoppable before he
even set foot in that river with John for his dunking, although John did catch a vision and had an experience when it came time to "do as all
righteousness commanded".

This story get's even more interesting, you'll see.

Back to the Magi

And so these Magi, they would have not been from the Jewish tribe or of Abraham ("Before Abraham ever was, I am." and "God can raise children of
Abraham from these stones."), but from the Civilization which they, the Jews, first migrated into, and then, having appropriated the wisdom, went off
from, to settle the region of Jerusalem as their capital city and center of religious, culture, and commercial activity - the Indus Valley
Civilization on the far side of the Hindu Kush Mountains and beyond (the East). Thus, they would have been, almost certainly, of Indian descent, not
of the tribes of Abraham, imagine Indian Shriners with starry hats with toussles on top, and you get the picture, but wicked smart in everything,
enligthened masters, even Bodhisatvas, but Jesus, he was a special type of Bodhisatva (incarnated striaght from heaven, re-born from above), they knew
this, and so trained him with everything that he would need to re-enter his society and do everyting that needed to be done, leaving it up to God
himself to "send him" as a "first/last cause".

In other words, Jesus came back armed to the teeth!

stay tuned..., it gets better, much better, more intriguing, more credible, compelling, humorous, heart wrenching, and absolutely unfathomably
believable, which is when the humor only starts to kick into high gear, when at last it starts to point back at you and me, prompting us with a
question we wouldn't even know of to begin to even ask but one which can't NOT be asked, it's a terrible predicament.

Now perhaps some among you, who actually read the Biblical account (giving me the benefit of the doubt here, or of the willingless to consider new
insights with an open mind) of Jesus' exchange with the Sameritan woman at the well, may have asked yourself - how did he read her mind and know her
past history ie: how many husbands she'd had (5!) and that the man she now lived with wasn't her husband (maybe a good call on her part given her
record)? Can that be believed or accepted outright, and need it be to accept the story as true?

Wellp, as The Magus, perhaps just maybe, he didn't always have to perform actual miracles in the most traditional sense (like making break and fish
pieces multiple, or healing a guy with leprosy)..

Play the tape back again. He would have planned our their trip and would have known well in advance the very day they would reach Jacob's well, what
town it served, who lived there (cousins really, via Jacob), etc., and so on the way there, how difficult would it be to find out who services the
well and at what hour, she, the woman, as it turns out goes to fill her jug, he might have even had options from which to choose, when to time his
arrival and his "quiet time" at the well, by himself while sending his desciples into another town to buy food - even enough to know in advance
precisely when to run OUT of food, and water both - a plan, the plan of a Magi!

So THAT'S why they said

42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves

To me that is just knee-slappingly, amazingly humorous, and a part of the story not recently understood like this, by anyone, with our "modern",
narrow, single minded, presumptuous, and often ultra-conservative literalist viewpoints for those that "believe". How did Jesus read her mind? "Well,
he's JESUS" they would say, incredulous! lol:

And hey, I'll bet the food prepared for them at the village beat the heck out of the meager rations the disciples hauled back from town, anyway, and
I'll betcha dollars to donuts that there was also wine, dance and song, story-telling, sharing, brotherhood, sisterhood, family - how fun!

So I rest my case in terms of this particular historical contextual criticism of that specific portion of the Synoptic Gospels - the aim being here to
establish a historical Jesus, possessing a certain style of ingenius, forward, visionary thinking perfectly capable of meeting every need to the
benefit of one and all involved, at all times - and if that, in action, would not qualify him as a "Magus" of high order then I'm not sure what
would?!

edit on 2-3-2012 by NewAgeMan because: because because because because beCAUSE... because of the wonderful wiz he was/is. ; )

If this is so, it would imply that the same systematic attitude the Indus Valley dwellers applied to their technology was applied also to the study of
the mind. This was brahmavidya, the "supreme science" - supreme because where other sciences studied the external world, brahmavidya sought
knowledge of an underlying reality which would inform ALL other studies and activities.

Linguists are still trying to decipher the Indus Valley script. Archaeologists are still trying understand the civilization.
Then, how do you arrive at the “understanding” that “bhramavidya” is the product of the Indus valley civilization?
There is no Philosophy in the torah. It’s a book consisting of the “history” of the jews + “worship/praise” to god. Nothing more, Nothing
less.
If according to your theory, if the Jews originated in ancient India, why doesn’t the jews have a Philosophy or religion that reflects the same as
in Hinduism?

The tree of Life Picture you have posted, is to be honest, crap.
Hinduism knew no Atlantean or lemurian stuff. Go look it up yourself.
Why link stuff that are bogus?

You sir, I can strongly say, know zilch about Hindu mythology or religion. You selectively use articles on Hindu mythology written on fringe and Hindu
nationalist sites to suit your theory.
Sorry to say, it falls flat.
Try some actual, archaeological evidence. Any ancient literature?
You wont find any.
In essence, out of all the posts you have made in this topic, only 25% actually said anything connected with the subject. The rest were just a
rigmarole of wishful thinking with pseud0 philosophical attempts.

The Indian scholar of the Gita and other Vedic Lierature and history, he's pretty well credentialed.

Eknath Easwaran
(1910-1999)
Brings to this volume a rare combination of credentials: knowledge of Sanskrit, an intuitive undersanding of his Hindu legacy, and a mastery of
English. He was chairman of the English department at a major Indian university when he came to the United States on a Fulbright fellowship in
1959.

There could easily have been strong ties between those two regions, and there WERE, from Mesopatamia to the Indus Valley, perhaps the most ancient
Civilization on Earth. Just because I'm not from India, doesn't mean I can't explore this topic, and since it's not exclusively just for you, I'm
going to carry on, and the idea re: the Magi with ties to these roots, a young boy Jesus and cousin John the Baptist, might just be of interest to
someone, you don't have to read it..

I don't mind taking flak either, so no worries, it's all good, say what you like. Why not just see where I'm going with this, and what I might
unearth, you never know. Haven't even fully researched the Magi yet, what if they are from India?

Just before the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, realized enlightenment, it is said the demon Mara attacked him with armies of monsters to
frighten Siddhartha from his seat under the bodhi tree. But the about-to-be Buddha did not move. Then Mara claimed the seat of enlightenment for
himself, saying his spiritual accomplishments were greater than Siddhartha's. Mara's monstrous soldiers cried out together, "I am his witness!"
Mara challenged Siddhartha--who will speak for you?

Then Siddhartha reached out his right hand to touch the earth, and the earth itself roared, "I bear you witness!" Mara disappeared. And as the
morning star rose in the sky, Siddhartha Gautama realized enlightenment and became a Buddha.

The Earth Witness Mudra

The "earth witness" Buddha is one of the most common iconic images of Buddhism. It depicts the Buddha sitting in meditation with his left hand, palm
upright, in his lap, and his right hand touching the earth. This represents the moment of the Buddha's enlightenment.

A mudra in Buddhist iconography is a body posture or gesture with special meaning. The earth witness mudra is also called the Bhumi-sparsha ("gesture
of touching the earth") mudra. This mudra represents unshakability or steadfastness. The Dhyani Buddha Akshobhya also is associated with the earth
witness mudra because he was immovable in keeping a vow never to feel anger or disgust at others.

The mudra also symbolizes the union of skillful means (upaya), symbolized by the right hand touching the earth, and wisdom (prajna), symbolized by the
left hand on the lap in a meditation position.

Confirmed by the EarthI

think the earth witness story tells us something else very fundamental about Buddhism. The founding stories of most religions involve gods and angels
from heavenly realms bearing scriptures and prophecies. But the enlightenment of the Buddha, realized through his own effort, was confirmed by the
earth.

Of course, some stories about the Buddha mention gods and heavenly beings. Yet the Buddha did not ask for help from heavenly beings. He asked the
earth. Religious historian Karen Armstrong wrote in her book, Buddha (Penguin Putnam, 2001, p. 92), about the earth witness mudra:

"It not only symbolizes Gotama's rejection of Mara's sterile machismo, but makes a profound point that a Buddha does indeed belong to the world.
The Dhamma is exacting, but it is not against nature. . . . The man or woman who seeks enlightenment is in tune with the fundamental structure of the
universe."

No Separation

Buddhism teaches that nothing exists independently. Instead, all phenomena and all beings are caused to exist by other phenomena and beings. The
existence of all things is interdependent. Our existence as human beings depends on earth, air, water, and other forms of life. Just as our existence
depends on and is conditioned by those things, they also are conditioned by our existence.

The way we think of ourselves as being separate from earth and air and nature is part of our essential ignorance, according to Buddhist teaching. The
many different things -- rocks, flowers, babies, and also asphalt and car exhaust -- are expressions of us, and we are expressions of them. In a
sense, when the earth confirmed the Buddha's enlightenment, the earth was confirming itself, and the Buddha was confirming himself. buddhism.about.com...

Now I don't think the Magi arrived at his physical birth, but who came from the far East nevertheless when sent for.

And while I suspect that the boy Jesus may indeed have had blond hair at birth, even blue eyes (don't ask - see linked post for more on that), I
don't think the "Three Wise Men" are of the right racial heritage as depicted in that painting. No I am convinced that there WERE "Magi from the
East", but that they were NOT of Abramaic heritage and descent, but of Indian heritage and racial descent. Dark skinned kings, who's "star" went
with them, and who knows maybe they COULD tell by reading the celestial signs that something was "up", and yet, given the nature of the
controversial birth I don't think so, don't think God writes that kind of thing in the heavens, and yet their coming to see the young Jesus, was no
less fateful, given that everything that happened happened for a reason, precisely the way it had to happen, in order so that everything else would
take place, and these Magi types, they sure seemed to be always ahead of the eight ball, so ya never know what they might have been able to
anticipate, or even read in the stars. But a mesage from Jersalem, or from neighboring Mesopatamia would also have worked just as easly, to bring them
to this wonder boy in need of help and guidance, of the kind available in only one place - the far East.

Yeah, exactly, we're not talking about the borders of modern India here, but that whole region, beyond the Hindu Kush mountains, all the way to the
edge of present day China, to Southern Turkey to the North. They did have trade routes back then also. Easwaran is right. This is just a
misunderstanding, and I'll admit that I'm not a scholar, and I certainly don't know modern Indian history, culture, or philosophy.

I'll have to post some maps of the territory we're talking about here, to make it more clear. Things change. It wasn't the same back then, nothing was
the same and it was probably a LOT better - I do suspect that it was a Golden Age, especially when meditation and the first cause in everthing forms
the basis of every other sphere of activity, yes, Brahmavidya, the supreme sacred science, practiced in the Indus Valley Civilization, what's so out
of whack about that?

In his History of the Jews, the Jewish scholar and theologian Flavius Josephus (37 - 100 A.D.), wrote that the Greek philosopher Aristotle had said:
"...These Jews are derived from the Indian philosophers; they are named by the Indians Calani." (Book I:22.)

Clearchus of Soli wrote, "The Jews descend from the philosophers of India. The philosophers are called in India Calanians and in Syria Jews. The name
of their capital is very difficult to pronounce. It is called 'Jerusalem.'"

"Megasthenes, who was sent to India by Seleucus Nicator, about three hundred years before Christ, and whose accounts from new inquiries are every day
acquiring additional credit, says that the Jews 'were an Indian tribe or sect called Kalani...'" (Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins, Vol. I; p.
400.)

Martin Haug, Ph.D., wrote in The Sacred Language, Writings, and Religions of the Parsis, "The Magi are said to have called their religion
Kesh-î-Ibrahim.They traced their religious books to Abraham, who was believed to have brought them from heaven." (p. 16.)

There are certain striking similarities between the Hindu god Brahma and his consort Saraisvati, and the Jewish Abraham and Sarai, that are more than
mere coincidences. Although in all of India there is only one temple dedicated to Brahma, this cult is the third largest Hindu sect.

In his book Moisés y los Extraterrestres, Mexican author Tomás Doreste states,
Voltaire was of the opinion that Abraham descended from some of the numerous Brahman priests who left India to spread their teachings throughout the
world; and in support of his thesis he presented the following elements: the similarity of names and the fact that the city of Ur, land of the
patriarchs, was near the border of Persia, the road to India, where that Brahman had been born.

The name of Brahma was highly respected in India, and his influence spread throughout Persia as far as the lands bathed by the rivers Euphrates and
Tigris. The Persians adopted Brahma and made him their own. Later they would say that the God arrived from Bactria, a mountainous region situated
midway on the road to India. (pp. 46-47.)

Bactria (a region of ancient Afghanistan) was the locality of a prototypical Jewish nation called Juhuda or Jaguda, also called Ur-Jaguda. Ur meant
"place or town." Therefore, the bible was correct in stating that Abraham came from "Ur of the Chaldeans." "Chaldean," more correctly Kaul-Deva
(Holy Kauls), was not the name of a specific ethnicity but the title of an ancient Hindu Brahmanical priestly caste who lived in what are now
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Indian state of Kashmir.

"The tribe of Ioud or the Brahmin Abraham, was expelled from or left the Maturea of the kingdom of Oude in India and, settling in Goshen, or the
house of the Sun or Heliopolis in Egypt, gave it the name of the place which they had left in India, Maturea." (Anacalypsis; Vol. I, p. 405.)

"He was of the religion or sect of Persia, and of Melchizedek."(Vol. I, p. 364.)

"The Persians also claim Ibrahim, i.e. Abraham, for their founder, as well as the Jews. Thus we see that according to all ancient history the
Persians, the Jews, and the Arabians are descendants of Abraham.(p.85) ...We are told that Terah, the father of Abraham, originally came from an
Eastern country called Ur, of the Chaldees or Culdees, to dwell in a district called Mesopotamia. Some time after he had dwelt there, Abraham, or
Abram, or Brahma, and his wife Sara or Sarai, or Sara-iswati, left their father's family and came into Canaan. The identity of Abraham and Sara with
Brahma and Saraiswati was first pointed out by the Jesuit missionaries."(Vol. I; p. 387.)

The word Aryan is an archaic term for either the proto-Indo-European people who are believed to have originated in central Russia, or the
proto-Indo-Iranian people who originated in southern Russia.
As part of the mass migration of people over many thousands of years, proto-Indo-European people migrated westward into much of Europe, taking their
language with them. Not all these people migrated westward, and a proto-Indo-Iranian culture developed in the south of Russia, probably around 2500
BCE. A few centuries later, a group migrated south-east into India, taking both language and the early Hindu religion with them. A later group also
migrated south, to the east of the Caspian Sea, into eastern Iran, also taking language and the Zoroastrian religion. A third group migrated south,
around the western edge of the Caspian Sea into western Iran. This last group, which was to become the Medes and Persians, took an older religion with
them but converted, centuries later, to Zoroastrianism.

Historians surmise that like the Iliad, the Mahabharata might well be based on actual events, culminating in a war that took place somewhere around
1000 B.C. - close, that is, to the very dawn of recorded Indian history. This guess has recently been supported by excavations at the ancient city of
Dvaraka, which, according to the Mahabharata, was destroyed and submerged in the sea after the departure of its divine ruler, Krishna. Only five
hundred years or so before this, by generally accepted guess, Aryan tribes originally from the area between the Caspian Sea and the Hundu Kush
mountains had migrated into the Indian subcontinent, bringing the prototype of the Sanskrit language and countless elements of belief and culture
that have been part of the Hindu traditions ever since. The oldest part of the most ancient of Hindu scriptures, the Rig Veda, dates from this period
- about 1500 B.C., if not much earlier.

Yet the wellspring of Indian religious faith, I believe, can be traced to a much earlier epoch. When the Aryans entered the Indian subcontinent
through the mountains of the Hindu Kush, they encountered a civilization on the banks of the Indus river that archeologists date back as far as 3000
B.C. Roughly contemporaneous with the pyramid-builders of the Nile, these indus-dwellers achieved a comparable level of technology. They had
metalworkers skilled in sheet-making, riveting, and casting of copper and bronze, crafts and industries with standardized methods of production,
land and sea trade with cultures as far away as Mesopotamia, and well planned cities with water supply and public sanitation systems unequaled
until the Romans. Evidence suggests that they may have used a decimal system of measurement. But most remarkable, images of Shiva as Yogeshvara, the
Lord of Yoga, suggest that meditation was practiced in a civilization which flourished a millenium before the Vedas were committed to an oral
tradition.

If this is so, it would imply that the same systematic attitude the Indus Valley dwellers applied to their technology was applied also to the study
of the mind. This was brahmavidya, the "supreme science" - supreme because where other sciences studied the external world, brahmavidya sought
knowledge of an underlying reality which would inform ALL other studies and activities.

Whatever its origins, in the early part of the first millenium B.C. we find clearly stated both the methods and the discoveries of brahmavidya. With
this introspective tool the inspired rishis (literally "seers") of ancient India analyzed their awarenesss of human experience to see if there
was anything that was absolute. Their findings can be summarized in three statements which Aldous Huxley, following Leibnitz, has called the Perennial
Philosophy because they appear in every age and civilization: (1) there is an infinite, changless reality beneath the world of change; (2) this same
reality lies at the core of every human personality; (3) the purpose of life is to discover this reality experiencially: that is, to realize God while
here on earth. These principals are the interior experiments for realizing them were taught systematically in the "forest academies" of ashrams - a
tradition which continues unbroken after some three thousand years.

The discoveries of brahmavidya were systematically committed to memory (and eventually to writing) in the Upanishads, visionary documents that are the
earliest and purest statement of the Perennial Philosophy. How many of these prescious records once existed no one knows; a dozen that date from Vedic
times have survived as part fo the Hindu canon of authority, the four Vedas. All have one unmistakable hallmark: the vivid stamp of personal mystical
experience. These are records of direct encounter with the divine. Tradition calls them shruti; literally "heard," as opposed to learned; they
are their own authority. By convention, on the Vedas (including their Upanishads) are considered shruti, based on direct knowledge of God.

Which leads us I think a step closer to the identity of the "Magi" from the East, from the one tribe who although they first made their way into
India, ended up in Persia, and were of the Zoroastrian tradition ie: of enlightened Godmen, or "men of power and authority" (the meaning of Magi), and
by "Zoroastrian" are denoted those who study the movement of the stars and celestial bodies, another meaning of Magi as well, including the practice
of ancient alchemy (transmution of form and substance).

And so this would take us in our search of the place of Jesus' tutelage to Persia in modern day Iran, athough his final destination, post-crucifixion
(more on that to follow), could very well have been in anywhere in that region, all the way to source of the Indus River.

The Indus forms the delta of Pakistan mentioned in the Vedic Rig Veda as Sapta Sindhu and the Iranic Zend Avesta as Hapta Hindu (both sets of
terms meaning Seven Rivers). The river has been a source of wonder during the Classical Period. King Darius of Persia sent Scylax of Caryanda to
explore the river in 510 BCE.

The Sanskrit word Sindhu means river, stream or ocean, probably from a root sidh meaning to keep off. Sindhu is still the local appellation for the
Indus River.

In the Rigveda Sindhu is the name of the Indus river. Sindhu is attested 176 times in the Rigveda, 95 times in the plural, more often used in the
generic meaning. In the Rigveda, notably in the later hymns, the meaning of the word is narrowed to refer to the Indus river in particular, for
example in the list of rivers of the Nadistuti sukta. This resulted in the anomaly of a river with masculine gender: all other Rigvedic rivers are
female, not just grammatically, being imagined as goddesses and compared to cows and mares yielding milk and butter.

The word Sindhu became Hindu in Old Persian language. "Indus" is a Hellenic derivative of the word Hindu in old Iranian language.[1] The name Indus is
used in Megasthenese's book Indica for the mighty river crossed by Alexander based on Nearchus's contemporaneous account.

The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi (Ινδοί), the people of the Indus.[1][2]

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